More commonly, self-proclaimed libertarians deal with the problem of market failure both by pretending that it doesn’t happen and by imagining government as much worse than it really is. We’re living in an Ayn Rand novel, they insist. (No, we aren’t.) We have more than a hundred different welfare programs, they tell us, which are wasting vast sums on bureaucracy rather than helping the poor. (No, we don’t, and no, they aren’t.)
I’m often struck, incidentally, by the way antigovernment clichés can trump everyday experience. Talk about the role of government, and you invariably have people saying things along the lines of, “Do you want everything run like the D.M.V.?” Experience varies — but my encounters with New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission have generally been fairly good (better than dealing with insurance or cable companies), and I’m sure many libertarians would, if they were honest, admit that their own D.M.V. dealings weren’t too bad. But they go for the legend, not the fact.
Libertarians also tend to engage in projection. They don’t want to believe that there are problems whose solution requires government action, so they tend to assume that others similarly engage in motivated reasoning to serve their political agenda — that anyone who worries about, say, environmental issues is engaged in scare tactics to further a big-government agenda. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, doesn’t just think we’re living out the plot of “Atlas Shrugged”; he asserts that all the fuss over climate change is just “an excuse to grow government.”
As I said at the beginning, you shouldn’t believe talk of a rising libertarian tide; despite America’s growing social liberalism, real power on the right still rests with the traditional alliance between plutocrats and preachers. But libertarian visions of an unregulated economy do play a significant role in political debate, so it’s important to understand that these visions are mirages. Of course some government interventions are unnecessary and unwise. But the idea that we have a vastly bigger and more intrusive government than we need is a foolish fantasy.
The foundation of Libertarianism is the belief that capitalism is our salvation. Our only salvation. It’s the religious dogma held by every Libertarian. Like all religious fanatics, Libertarians can’t be swayed by facts or logic. The High Priests of the oligarchy find it very profitable to sell to the Libertarian sheep all of the capitalist nonsense that they’re stupid enough to buy.
While the public has come around to Krugman’s position, you can tell whose side media is on, what with their knowing nods when some Liebertarian trots out another dose of blatant absurd bullshit.
I’ve had pretty bad DMV experiences, Mr Krugman. Worst of all is California, where getting your drivers licence (at least 10 years ago) could be an all day event. You would get there at six in the morning and the lines were around the block. Took hours waiting for your number to be called, then you had to find one of 40 different desks before they gave up on you and called the next number. God forbid you be missing a document and have to start over on another day. I would say that was the only bureaucratic experience I’ve had that was worse than the cable company (Comcast was slightly worse than Time Warner). California is truly part 3rd world country in many respects, and there is so much money there on the coast, you would not believe.
Libertarians are really so unable to think outside of the context of a world of trivial rights they imagine are innate and inalienable – and yet those trivial and specious rights somehow trump everyone else’s important rights.